Masdevallia veitchiana care

[Iggy75]

Picked up a Masdevallia Veitchiana recently because it was SO striking, but after doing some research, I am a little frightened about keeping it healthy.
For those of you who are familiar with this orchid, are they difficult to keep indoors? I live in the Pacific NW and wonder if I could summer it outdoors. Currently daytime highs are in the 60s-70s with lows in the 40s. In the winter my house is around 70F during the day and 60F at night. Do these temps sound ok?
I read that they do not like direct sunlight, so if kept outside I would shade it.
My nest question is about humidity. What is ideal for this species? Indoors I can keep a room around 60%. Is this too low? Thanks in advance for your help!

[lmartiny]

What little I know about masdies is they are cooler growers so your temps should be OK. I also think they like to be kept moist. Hopefully someone with more knowledge will reply.
I got a masdie as part of a growing project here and being in FL I'm struggling with it.

[jbigio]

Masdevallia Veitchiana is a cool growing masd. Like most but not all Masd they like light levels similar to that of Phal. The temp now outside would be fine but how warm does it get latter in the season? I grow about 150 different varieties of Masd, both species and hybrids all under lights indoors. This gives me the ability to control both temp and humidity which should be in the 60 and up range. Keep it moist but never soggy. I keep all my masd in moss which I let almost dry before watering. hope this helps
Joe

[kmarch]

Originally Posted by Iggy75

Picked up a Masdevallia Veitchiana recently...

Masd veitchiana (note small "v" - species names are not capitalized) is a cool-to-intermediate grower. If your current temps have lows of 40F it would do well outdoors. If I understand the Pacific NW is humid, which will be good for this Massie. It may need a little protection or you might need to bring it in if it gets cooler than 40 or so and you will probably need to protect it from the heat in the summer. I believe the key to keeping it going during the hotter summer months is humidity. In my experience if you keep the humidity high, like 80%+ they can actually withstand a fair bit of heat (though of course this is not ideal).

[LouisW]

I cant really add to the culture advise above because I have no experience growing these orchids but I do have experience in their native habitat so I can contribute by describing that.

Masd. veitchiana grows in the Peruvian and Ecuadorian Andes (probably Colombia too). Its habitat is the very humid cloud forest up to around 9000ft. The nights are quite cold (trust me on this) and 40 low sounds about right to me. The sun can be quite hot and intense at such high altitudes but M. veitchiana usually grows within a few meters of the ground where the light is highly filtered. The air is constantly moving up the densely forested valleys which provides plenty of air movement. Just to add a little scenery they live in the same forests as birds such as the Highland Motmot, the Andean Cock of the Rock, Mountain Toucans, and Aracari. (If anything can compete with orchids for color its birds, and if you haven't seen these ones a Google search might be a treat.)

I dont know if that helps for the culture but it might put the orchid in perspective which is always nice.